The Tribe Has Spoken

The song “Working Class Hero” is a classic exposition of the humiliation of being part of the collective blue-collar mass. It was John Lennon on the Imagine album who sang “There’s room at the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill, if you want to be like the folks on the hill.” Thank you Dominic for reminding me of that song lyric. Nobody epitomizes that better than Channel 6 management and parent company Freedom/Blackstone Communications.

As mentioned in my last blog, I escaped their misery months ago but now I’m deep into helping liberate my brothers from the same fate. About 60 of us ‘working class heros’ smiled pretty for the cameras while the WRGB General Manager looked on in disgust. He and his BMW/Lexus driving partners called in the Albany police patrol and Mayor Jerry Jennings to silence our rally for a fair contract. We treated Albany’s finest with coffee and donuts and our chants continued.

Inside Huckfins Warehouse, a furniture store that heavily promotes on WRGB, the Sales department held auditions for the cut-throat, back-stabbing reality TV show Survivor – at the same time, cutting their own NABET employees necks by 15%. It takes at least 5 votes to cast someone off Survivor, on NABET’s island – nobody gets ‘Immunity’ and everybody’s fate is at the mercy of one money-hungry General Manager.

I overheard his salary borders around the 300G benchmark – scratch a zero from that and your looking at an average ‘working class heros’ paycheck before a 15% paycut. As viewers drove into the parking lot we tossed them leaflets asking them to turn off CBS6 News until the issue is resolved. Most of them supported our efforts and admited they’d rather watch local NBS and ABC coverage anyway. ‘Good for you’ we boasted. How’s that for company morale Mr. Bell?

2 Responses

The company will win,they always do in the end.You see everyone can be replaced.The unions no that by now.Just like the air traffic controlers Regan fired them all and replaced them without a problem.There is always someone out there who will do it for less and that’s the climate that your all in now.But at least you keep trying.